Maze Run
by StoryGardener
Summary: Kirk and Spock are put to a test of speed and endurance in a maze. No slash.
1. Chapter 1

**When I posted the last chapter of _On Ice_ I thought I would be done for a while. But no. This one will be a short one, though. I won't be writing another +50,000 word story any time soon. I think.**

**Chapter One**

"Captain. Captain."

_Patient insistence._

"Spock? Wha-?"

James T. Kirk, finding himself on the ground, on his side, tried to get up but winced at the pounding in his head. Spock hand was instantly on his arm to keep him from falling over again.

"Oh, my head!"

The Vulcan helped him scootch over to a wall, where he managed to sit up but had to hold his head in his hands.

"What the hell happened-" he moaned, reeling from the terrible pressure in his brain. Still his hand went automatically to his belt, where he found neither phaser nor communicator. "That rules out a transporter malfunction, then," he whispered.

"Definitively, Captain," said Spock stoically. "My tricorder is missing as well. I believe we were stunned."

"High force too, judging by the hammer in my head." Talking helped him breathe, which seemed to help with the head ache. He glanced up, gingerly. "Are you alright, Spock?"

The Vulcan seemed the same as ever, except for the look of concern.

"I am fine, Captain. The adverse effects faded quickly. I approximate that I was unconscious for forty-five minutes, twenty-three seconds. You regained consciousness four minutes and three seconds after I did."

Kirk nodded gingerly, looking around, taking in the long corridor. The walls and floor were of the same gray, resinous material, chilled and dusty, even gritty on his hands. The diffuse, cold light seemed to emanate from nowhere.

"Any idea where we are?"

"Evidently we are not at the designated coordinates, Captain."

_No kidding_, thought Kirk. They were supposed to beam down to the lush greenery of their camp on E-381. This wasn't a place anywhere on that planet that they knew of.

"Okay, I'm better now," Kirk informed his second-in-command. "Help me up here." Spock pulled him up. Kirk found the pain in his head was clearing up quickly now. Still he stayed close to the wall as he surveyed their surroundings.

There were the marks their bodies had made in the dust, and their footprints. By the look of one set, Spock had not ventured far. The opposite wall was six feet away. The corridor stretched left and right with no end in sight, but it seemed to broaden toward his left and get narrower toward his right. There were many openings all along the opposite wall, but none that he could see in the wall he was leaning against.

"It's a maze? The edge of a maze?"

"I believe so, Captain. I looked down that corridor." He pointed left, to the first opening to the right. "It looks much the same as this one, only it is a foot and a half narrower and has corridors running off it on all sides."

Kirk sighed. His head was much better but still he didn't feel up to a mystery. They were supposed to be surveying a quiet little planet, take soil, air and bio samples, enjoy a rest after a long and stressful nebular study that had rattled and at times shaken the crew and the ship. Half his crew had already beamed down, without incident. There were no warning signs of any kind that could even remotely explain what had happened to Spock and himself. Was it just them? Was his crew on the planet safe? Was the _Enterprise_ safe?

"Let's go," he said through clenched teeth, choosing the corridor to their left that Spock had indicated.

00000000

"Disused," Kirk said two hours later, breaking the silence.

He and Spock had discussed possibilities, none of them satisfactory. They had called out demanding information, without result. They had fallen silent an hour ago and just walked.

Corridors, on and on. Some narrow, some wide, some widening, some narrowing, some seemingly unchanging in their width, to his eye, though Spock's superior eyesight sometimes perceived otherwise. They opened up at irregular intervals, left and right. The height never changed, the ceiling remained about four feet above the top of Spock's head. But the corners were irregular, though never rounded. It was all very inorganic and mechanical in the indefinite, gray light. There were no markings, no tracks in the dust, which was everywhere. On the floor, in corners, it was sometimes half an inch thick.

"Yes, Captain. But there is air ventilation, though subtle, and this lighting."

"They fired her up for us," Kirk speculated, if only to keep them talking. He was sick of the silence, the not-knowing. He stopped abruptly. Spock, who was walking next to him, stopped too.

"I'm too relaxed," Kirk remarked.

"Nothing of note has happened in two hours, twelve minutes. It is normal to let one's guard down."

"I don't like it. Surely this whole setup has a _point_ other than to bore us to death?"

"Perhaps there is no point, Captain. Perhaps we will just walk. There is no water, no food."

The Vulcan stopped there. They had gone through this.

"Yes, but-"

Kirk stopped, immediately alert upon seeing the sudden attention on the Vulcan's face.

"What?" he whispered.

"A sound, Captain," Spock said quietly, slowly turning his head to get a bearing. "It is hard to tell where it is coming from, but approaching fast." He spun around. "There!"

Suddenly the corridor filled with a whirring, clanging noise, which abruptly ended. Kirk turned too. There, about a hundred feet away, stood _something_. A block, almost as broad as the corridor – six feet wide - and almost as tall. It was a metallic gray, much like the material the maze was made of. There were variations in its surface, suggesting many parts, but it wasn't moving. It was silent, just sitting there, blocking the passage.

"What are you?" Kirk called to it. Something told him to stay where he was. Something told him this thing was a threat.

No effect.

"We have been brought here against our will. Did _you_ bring us here?" Kirk tried again.

Suddenly the thing was on the move, thundering with noise.

"Run!" Kirk yelled, pulling Spock along.

The Vulcan was much faster and had soon taken the lead, but he paced himself, making sure the Captain could follow his dodging left and right. Kirk did his best to keep up. They had had a strategy before, taking only second, left turns. Not that it had helped his orientation, or that it had gotten them anywhere. Now, however, all sense of direction or goal left him. He looked over his shoulder only once at the thing rounding the corner just twenty yards behind him and it seemed to him to _roil, _like boiling water, but instead of bubbles it roiled in blocks and cubes and, like water, spilled easily around the corners into the corridors.

The prolonged sprint soon pushed him into trouble. His breathing became more and more ragged. Sweat got into his eyes and he blinked to clear his vision, then for a horrible second Spock was no longer in front of him, but an arm appeared from the right and pulled him in.

"Through here, Captain!"

Kirk hadn't even seen that entrance. How long had they been running? How long could he keep this up? He concentrated on Spock's straight back, on moving his legs. That's all that mattered, to keep away from that roiling, thundering thing behind him.

Left, right, right again, left, he lost track. The maze that seemed to be shrinking, a series of corridors, some only a few feet long, narrower and narrower. The added effort of dodging and lunging made it worse for him, and he would have screamed in pain at the stitch in his side had he been able to spare the breath. He tried to listen for the thing, but could only hear the ringing in his ears and his rasping breath. Then they came to a corridor so narrow, they had to squeeze through. Kirk stumbled but Spock caught his arm and pulled him up, then continued in one flowing motion.

"Keep going, Captain! The worst is over!"

Kirk couldn't begin to imagine why Spock would say that, but he pushed himself to pick up the pace again, his heart pounding more and more erratically as they ran headlong for another five minutes. Finally he slammed into a wall and stopped, bent over and gasping, one hand on knee, the other finding support on the wall.

"I c-" he croaked. His breathing was so shallow and constricted he was getting lightheaded. His legs were quickly turning to lead. Sweat was dripping down his face, splashing in the dust. "I'm—leav—tracks!"

Spock came back to him and held his arm.

"So am I, Captain, it can't be helped. But I believe there is a limit to how narrow it can make itself. I believe it could not fit through and is looking for a way around." He stopped, listened. "We are quite safe now, Captain. I can't hear it. I believe you can sit down and take some rest."

Kirk groaned, sliding down the wall. He still couldn't seem to catch his breath.

Spock went down on his knee beside him and kept his hand on his arm, possibly – Kirk thought - to take his readings. Even so, he Vulcan methodically turned his head to look and listen in all directions.

"What—was—that?" Kirk asked after a minute, when he could trust his voice.

"A machine of some kind, Captain. Without a scanner it is hard to tell, but I believe it is not organic. It is made up of aggregates of small, interlocking elements, mostly cubes, which it aligns for speed and movement. Its optimal shape, for speed at least, seems to be a long box, six feet by four feet by ten feet. That is roughly, Captain. In narrower spaces it rearranges itself to fit, but its increased length slows it down. It is slowed down most when it needs to fit itself around multiple corners. Once I realized this I knew we had to take the narrow paths, and to our advantage we hit upon a part of the maze that is more constricted."

Kirk stared at his second-in-command, glad for the calm, _not_-out-of-breath voice, the impeccable logic, the acute observations.

"Captain," Spock said gravely,"we ran five point two miles in thirty-one minutes, forty seconds."

"Ah, that would be a personal best," Kirk joked lamely.

Spock did not reply, but his concern was plain on his face.

"Okay, I didn't train for this," Kirk admitted. _And I couldn't do it again, not anytime soon._ He didn't have to say it out loud. "How about you?"

"I can maintain a speed of thirteen point four miles per hour for over three hours, Captain."

"I see. It seems, then," Kirk said, "that this thing's speed is more or less matched to ours."

"Yes, perhaps this is a contest of sorts. And perhaps you and I were transferred here because our particular combination offered a varied distribution of speed and endurance."

"Help me up," Kirk said, painfully aware that this was the second time in just a few hours that he had had to make that request.

Spock helped him stand. He was still a little light-headed and uncertain on his feet. His legs felt heavy, his whole body was sore and sluggish.

"The build-up of lactic acid is preventing your muscles from getting enough oxygen, Captain," Spock informed him. "It should pass soon. Next time I will try to implement better strategies sooner. "

"Thank you, Mister Spock, that would be helpful," Kirk said.

He could have killed for a drink of water, but there was none, so no need to remark on it. The sweat was cooling on his skin, and he shivered.

"Let's move," he said with renewed urgency.

Spock took the lead again, keeping the pace to a risk walk. It helped, didn't deplete him much and kept him warm and loose.

"I recommend we keep to the narrow corridors, Captain, and move away from the direction of the machine."

"You mean to tell me, Mister Spock, that you remember which direction that is?"

"Yes, Captain, I also exactly remember our way back."

Kirk thought for a moment, looking at Spock's back. Then he took the Vulcan's arm and held him back. The Vulcan turned and Kirk looked him deep in the eye.

"Spock, listen. There must be only _one _of those things or we would have been corralled already. And it can't split itself into parts or it would have done so to fit through and catch up with us. Next time, while I still have some strength, you break away from me, you hear? Chances are it will come after me. You have to return to our starting point. It is the _edge_ of the maze so there may be an entrance of some kind."  
"Jim, you are recovering fast. If we stay in the narrow places-"

"_Spock_, if I survive the next run-in, then what? We have no food, no water... It's only a matter of time. No, we can't waste time. We need to split up. It's _logical. _I might be able to stay ahead of it, but regardless you have to go back and find a way out and then you can come and find me."

Spock hesitated a second. Then his voice stern and, somehow, sad at the same time, he said,

"Yes, Captain. It is, as you say, logical."

Kirk nodded and they moved on.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter two**

Spock was worried about Captain Kirk. Their adversary had found them again after an hour, and they had been running for three hours and seven minutes. Fortunately, because the maze here was quite constricted, they had not had to maintain the high speed that had been necessary upon their earlier encounter in the wider corridors. However, their pace was still such that the Captain was suffering greatly, and Spock had not been able to find the kind of decisive bottleneck that they had stumbled upon before and that would allow him to catch his breath. Also unfortunately, it seemed to Spock that the machine had some knowledge of the layout of the maze, for it was managing to drive them further and further away from their starting point at the unbroken wall.

Whenever Spock touched Kirk, to stop him from falling or to pull him through a narrow gap, he felt the incredibly high rate of a stressed heart pumping the thickening blood to muscles and vital organs. His tortured breathing was taxed further with each landing of a foot on the hard floor, which elicited a small, agonized grunt. Spock could imagine the stiff muscles leaking enzymes into the blood, signaling injury, inviting pain and throwing each movement off. Severely dehydrated, the Captain had stopped sweating and was running a temperature. Spock knew that an inflammatory storm was raging in Kirk's body. Soon artery walls would start rupturing, blood would start to clot, and a heart attack was imminent. When they had arrived here, the Captain had been strong, fit, healthy, but in just under five hours of extreme physical exertion and no fluid intake, he had been pushed past the limits of his endurance

Finally, after another twelve minutes, they had gained enough on their pursuer to stop for a moment. Spock slowed down and Kirk immediately took the hint, nearly collapsing in his First Officer's arms. Spock held him up, though – if he laid down he would not be able to get up again. The man's breathing came too loud, too shallow, too quick. His skin was pale and cold despite the fever underneath. His eyes were glazed over with pain. His face a grimace.

"We have only one minute, Captain," Spock said.  
"Gotta-lemme-go!" Kirk gasped. Though in difficulty, the anger in his voice was unmistakable.

"Captain, if I can find a constriction somewhere-"

"No!" Kirk's hands closed painfully around Spock's arm, and his eyes burned. "Order—Spock!"

Just that small effort seemed to deplete him. He sagged more, seemed barely able to stay conscious.

Spock couldn't find it in his heart to keep him from finding the rest he so sorely needed. He gently helped him sit down against the wall.

The machine was now noticeably getting nearer.

"Go-h-" Kirk gasped, with unbreakable will boring into Spock's eyes.

Spock swallowed, nodded. Then he stood, and ran.

00000000000

Kirk could now hear it over the high-pitched racket in his ears. God, he was in pain. His head swam and with every breath his lungs felt like they were going to tear apart. Every muscle screamed, and that he had slid down onto his side and was now lying still didn't seem to make a difference. His throat was an agony of burning fire. Even his gums hurt. His hacking breathing stirred the dust on the ground.

But it was coming. It wasn't going after Spock. It was coming for him.

_Come on, you bastard._

His eyes were fixed on the direction of the noise. There was an eerie, waif-like _clickety-click_ underlined by a massive, deep rumble. He made fists of his hands, trying to keep his cool, but the sight of it rounding the corner burst a dam of fear in him. He tried to get up but came crashing back down again, screaming at the muscle spasms all over his body. When he opened his eyes there it stood, still, unmoving, almost silent, except for a slight whirring.

_Why does it do that?_

Like it was surprised to see him, or pondering what to do next. _Or_, he thought, _as if it knows it's got me. To gloat._

Then it made its move.

With the last of his strength and the adrenaline boxing his ears, he began to drag himself away, making a long, wet streak in the dust. He made it around the corner and holding on to it even got himself back to his feet and stumbling again. But it lasted only a few steps. He fell against the wall and felt himself slipping.

Then the sweat turned to ice on his skin.

It was right behind him, then _on_ him. Metal claws swept him up, spun him around and shoved him up against the wall. Within seconds it was all over him. Not a foot away from his face, he could see its seething surface, a churning mass of minuscule interlocked parts, like chain mail but, it seemed, all the way through. Mesmerized, he realized too late that it was encasing him, fitting itself like metal shroud around his body, exerting enough pressure – cold, _sharp_ - to render him immobile.

The loud, rasping sound of his breathing was muffled in the small space that was left in front of his face. The cool, metallic smell gave way to suffocation as what little air was left went stale, ran out. It was dark in this cage, but still he could see by the faint luminescence off the thing.

"_Please_," he rasped.

From its surface, a hand width away from his nose, emerged a clamp.

He tried to move his head to evade it but the clamp grasped his forehead and held him. Then he saw it. It was so small and so close he almost couldn't get a visual lock on it.

_A needle._

"NO!" he screamed.

The cry was smothered in the cubic foot of air still left to him. He struggled but all that could move now was his frantic heart. The incredibly minuscule, sharp needle point slid slowly forward toward the inside corner of his left eye. He felt it puncture the tissue near the tear duct - it was almost a _soft_ feeling.

Then a hot, seething pain exploded in his brain.


	3. Chapter 3

**The writing of The Witch of Jura is getting a little stuck, so I thought I'd return to this story to loosen up a bit.**

**Chapter 3**

The machine had not pursued him. It had gone straight for the Captain. It had taken all of his will power not to turn around when he heard the Captain's cry of fear, the panicked _No_ after which all had been quiet.

As the machine had not blocked his retreat, his retracing of their steps was proceeding unhindered and, without Kirk, his progress was much faster. But every second and every step away from the Captain tightened the mental rope that tied him to his friend. But _no. _He concentrated, knowing full well that one wrong turn and he'd have to find a whole new way. He listened. No sound, nothing from the machine. Nothing from Jim.

_Logic_.

Logic pushed him onward.

He was no match for the massive structure.

There was no reason for the structure to kill the Captain.

_His_ task was to go back to the wall, find the exit, find help.

Silence.

_Keep going_.

_There_.

The maze's dead end against the unbroken wall. Spock came to a halt, barely out of breath. He immediately set to investigating it, touching it. It was entirely smooth, a little dusty. No seams. Touching it with his fingertips he ran alongside it. There were the imprints their bodies had made when they lay unconscious. Spock stopped, looked up from their tracks, then down and up again along the wall.

Squinted, closed one eye.

The wall curved.

He was certain of it. In the distance it turned gradually away from the maze.

_A circle_.  
The wall enclosed a circle, by the look of it – a squint, a quick calculation – with a circumference of 2.24 kilometers. Somewhere along it, there must be a hint to what was inside the circle. Spock started at a trot, touching the wall, looking all the way.

00000000000

The pain was indescribable. It came in waves, each new wave making his body clench like a fist, squeezing the strength out of him, exhausting him more and more, tearing at his defenses till he cried out in rage and helplessness. The worst was that he still couldn't move, he was still encased in metal, and the sound of his scream stopped at his lips. When he thought his brain would explode inside his skull he blacked out, came to to the same agony. Over and over, till the darkness was deep and long.

00000000000

When he came to next it was with an wide-mouthed, rasping intake of breath. Squeezing his eyes shut he gulped in air like a drowning man. It was stale - the maze air - but he couldn't get enough of it. Then he calmed down, opened his eyes.

A uniform, dim light and _space_.

He had thought he would die. But here he was, alive.

He stared at the ceiling – the same gray ceiling as the one in the maze – and forced himself to assess. He was lying on his back and he was free of the suffocating metal blanket, free of the agony, though the stiffness of the pain and a reluctant memory lingered. He moved a leg. Something was holding his ankle. He lifted a hand to bring it to his eye, but it got stuck: restrained.

Gingerly lifted his head. His neck and shoulder muscles protested. His head fell back to the table – no pillow, he was just lying on a metal slab – but he had caught a glimpse of the room. Not very large. Empty. Quiet too.

Gritting his teeth he lifted his head again, looked down the length of his body. He was still in his uniform, stained with sweat, dust and... blood. He licked his upper lip: salty, crusted too. He sniffed, then gagged when a plug of blood slipped into his throat. The nosebleed and coughing fit that followed were almost too much. Desperately he tried to lift his head to clear his throat, to not drown in his own blood. Somewhere in his swimming, darkening vision he saw movement in the room.

A strong arm enveloped him and held him half upright while he spat and coughed up the clots and caught his breath.

Then he jerked to get away from it, though it held him fast.

It wasn't the machine.

It was a woman.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_Cold. Hard._

That's why he was trying to pull away from her.

_It_.

It _looked_ like a woman, an attractive one too, in a generic sense, but it didn't _feel_ like one. Its grip, for one, was hard and insensitive, its steely fingers bruising his arms where it was gripping him too tightly, as if it lacked sensory feedback. And through his shirt, drenched as it is with the sudden sweat of fear, he could feel the coldness of its hands.

Struggling to get away, looking over his shoulder, he glimpsed its eyes: dead.

It filled him with a hair-raising dread, an overwhelming panic that drew upon his memory of the torture he had endured in the equally cold, hard, unyielding machine, and he struggled all the more.

"Calm yourself," it said, and though its voice sounded organic, female, the intonation was mechanical.

It did not relent in its semi-embrace. He couldn't help it, in his panic he was doing himself more damage in its grip.

"Let go of me," he grunted, his breath catching.

Glancing at its face, he noticed a change in the empty eyes as it seemed to process his demand, as if it hadn't realized, until he voiced it, what was his intention for struggling so. Then it let go of him and took a step back. Panting with relief, coughing, he scurried as far away from it on the slab as the restraints allowed.

"Untie me," he demanded hoarsely, hopeful it would comply again.

"I cannot," it said.

"You can't or you won't?" he demanded, regaining control of himself.

"I cannot. I am not allowed."

"Who operates you?"

"I do."

"But you can't let me go, because something else gives you orders."

"Because I follow rules."

"Did you _choose_ those rules?"

This now brought it up short.

"I do not understand_ '_choose'," it said after a split second hesitation.

He was too tired to keep this up. With a gesture of defeat he slumped on the slab and let his head rest against the cool metal.

"You're not free to chose," he concluded tiredly, more to himself than to the "woman". "You're not even free to know what 'free' means. You're a machine."

Despite his wariness of it, he had to close his eyes. The struggle had been too much and his ears were ringing louder and louder.

"You should not have been hurt."

He opened his eyes.

"What did you say?"

It was standing back, a couple of feet away, looking at him. Still no emotion, but paying close attention to him. He realized with shudder that it was like looking into the lens of a camera. Was he talking to a machine, or _through _the machine to someone else?

"The rule was not to damage you."

"Whose rule?" he asked.

"Our rule, the rule we follow."

"'We'... Y_ou_ didn't damage me." He swallowed. For all he knew this was just an extension of the same machine that had tortured him. "Did you?"

"No. That was not me."

"Who-what did then?"

"The other."

Kirk despaired, suddenly feeling like he was in the maze again, dodging, in danger of hitting dead ends, running out of energy. If he could only close his eyes for a second...

"The other broke the rule, then, but you won't?"

"I damaged you too, just now," it spoke coldly. "I did so because I did not have enough data. I do now. I will endeavor not to damage you further. The other, however, continued to damage you even after observing it."

"Why do you think the other did that?"

"Insufficient data," it intoned.

"What," he persisted, "is the consequence for breaking the rule?"

"Insufficient data."

"Untie me!" he yelled, releasing his frustration.

"It is not allowed."

"Why? What do you plan to do with me?"

"You must recover."

"Then what?"

"The other will come."

"But! But the other broke the rule! It will break the rule again!" Kirk protested.

There was a hesitation in the "woman's" face. Kirk latched onto it with a tendril of hope, only to see it slip away when it turned on its heel and started to leave.

"Wait!" he cried out, "wait!"

It didn't stop, but left through a door that slid open and closed again.

He yanked on the restraints, feeling deeply the bruising of his sore muscles.

_Spock_, he thought. _Spock, where are you?_


End file.
